At the National Forum on Europe, Socialist Party representative Joe Higgins confronted heavyweight representatives of big business in the persons of PETER SUTHERLAND, Chairman of Goldman Sachs International and former Director General of the World Trade Organisation, German Chancellor ANGELA MERKEL and JOSE MANUEL BAROSSO, President of the EU Commission. They were in Ireland to promote a “Yes” vote in the Lisbon Treaty.

Joe Higgins challenged Chancellor Merkel to say that the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Treaty would not end low pay and worker exploitation as claimed by some “Yes” advocates. He referred to workers at the luxury Ritz Carlton Hotel in Berlin where a suite can cost €3,000 per night but a worker cleaning the rooms get an incredible 60c per room or about €2.80 per hour. He added that, far from relying on the Lisbon Treaty, this kind of exploitation can only be rooted out when workers take industrial action just like the German train drivers did recently.

When EU Commission President Barosso appeared, he was confronted by Joe Higgins about the Irish government and the Commission conspiring to subvert a democratic debate on the Lisbon Treaty by agreeing to manage any news coming from the EU that might cause embarrassment to the Irish government’s campaign for a “Yes” vote.

None of the three gave straight or comprehensive answers to the precise questions he put to them in relation to an agenda to open health and education services to privatisation, the militarisation of the EU and on his assertion that in the EU the right of business to make a profit was put before workers’ rights